


Rewind - Take Me Back to the Start

by Atlanta_Black



Series: Butterfly Effect [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Butterfly Effect, Chaos Theory, F/M, Gen, Slytherin, Slytherin!Lily, what if
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-20 21:33:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12442263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atlanta_Black/pseuds/Atlanta_Black
Summary: We all know how the story goes. James Potter goes off to Hogwarts, eleven years old and ready to cause mischief and mayhem wherever he goes. James Potter goes off to Hogwarts and gets swept away by little, Lily Evans. Lily is all clever words and bright eyes. Wild and beautiful and completely and utterly fed up with Potter. But always Gryffindor, always pure.So, here’s a different story.





	Rewind - Take Me Back to the Start

We all know how the story goes. James Potter goes off to Hogwarts, eleven years old and ready to cause mischief and mayhem wherever he goes. James Potter goes off to Hogwarts and gets swept away by little, Lily Evans. Lily is all clever words and bright eyes. Wild and beautiful and completely and utterly fed up with Potter. 

It’s the perfect, cliché romance. Full of light and happiness and above all other things, it is full of love. But look, a war is not full of light and the only happiness they found was in each other, never in anything else. It’s the perfect fairy tale story. But Lily was not a fairytale and by the end of everything I’m sure James knew that as well. Lily is always told to be bright and vivacious and everything a little girl should aim to be. But always Gryffindor, always pure. 

Here’s a different story. Lily Evans arrived at Hogwarts on September 1st with the same backstory, the same parents and the same jealous, spiteful sister. There’s steel running down her backbone and her eyes still remind anyone wizarding raised of the killing curse. Too bright, too expressive, too much. The purebloods still whisper slurs behind her back. Changeling, faery child. Mudblood, filth. It’s easier to pretend she’s not human than admit a muggleborn is better than them. 

So, Lily goes off to Hogwarts, arrives with Snape by her side and a desire to learn. A desire to be great in this world that has caused her sister to hate her. And the hat does the unthinkable. It puts Lily in Slytherin. Sticks the tiny little muggleborn in the den of snakes and expects her to thrive. And thrive she does, Lily has never been one to let her house define who she could be. Why should this change now?

Let me tell you how she thrives. There’s a whole other world of knowledge in Slytherin and plenty of students willing to look past her heritage and teach her anything she wants to know. Dark magic, light magic. It’s really all just magic at the end of the day and Lily would never dream of hurting anyone so really, what’s the harm of learning? Who cares if Lily’s magic starts bleeding grey? And honestly, if Slytherin respects her a little more for it well, she’ll take every advantage she can get. 

So, let’s tell the story of a Potter who’s still enchanted by her, that really nothing changes except now she can get away from him in her common room. Nothing changes except now they eat on separate sides of the hall. Potter still yells stupid pick-up lines and asks her out a ridiculous amount of times every week and Sirius is still amused and Remus still exasperated and Peter, poor Peter, is quietly shuffling his feet off to the side. And the Slytherin’s, well, at least he’s a pureblood they mutter. Disgraceful enough to have a mudblood in Slytherin house but at least she’s caught the eye of a pureblood, at least she’s not breeding more filth. 

James still spends most of his first few Hogwarts years picking on Snape and completely and thoroughly alienating Lily. Still buys her flowers and thinks up the most ridiculous pick-up lines he can. Still asks her to Hogwarts almost every weekend from third year onwards. Lily still hates him on principle. Still despises his little gang of friends and still figures out Remus is a werewolf. Honestly though, how anyone could miss it she just doesn’t understand. It’s glaringly obvious or maybe she just spends too much time glaring at the part of the Gryffindor table. 

Lily is still considered the brightest witch of her age and she still despises Voldemort and everything he stands for. When Snape starts leaning towards his side of the war, she screams. Asks him how he could possibly follow someone who wants her dead? Asks him how he can throw their friendship away over a psychopath dark lord who has no concept of rationality. Nothing changes. She still stops speaking to Snape in fifth year and half of slytherin still ends up following the dark lord. The other half remembers her fondly if not quietly. For many years following her death, there will be a quite a few pureblood households who take the time to light a candle and remember her. 

Lucius never stops believing that being pureblood makes you inherently better than everyone else but sometimes, when he thinks of Lily he wonders. When he meets her son, he begins to wonder even more. She doesn’t spark a revolution but she does plant the seeds of doubt. 

She grows up Slytherin and still marries Potter and now she’s the kind of wild that cuts you if you get too close. She has dark spells dangling at her fingertips and a dark lord hunting her down. The only thing more dangerous than a prophesied savior is one that has been raised by a mother even your followers can find barely anything bad to say about. Do you really think Harry survived the killing curse because of love? Do you really think light magic blocked the only curse that is unblockable? Lily gave everything she had to save her son and still nothing changes. She still dies and still Harry goes off to the Dursley’s.

And then Harry is 11 and going off to Hogwarts and his mother was in Slytherin and his father in Gryffindor and well, Hagrid can’t very well say anything bad about his mother’s house. Lucius Malfoy has nothing insulting to say unless it’s about her blood. Narcissa remembers her fondly and Slytherin is not welcoming but not quite as unforgiving. 

So, Harry Potter sits on the stool and when the hats says you could be great, you could be brave, it’s all there in your head. What he’s really saying is, you are a perfect mix of both your parents despite neither of them raising you. Harry says put me where I’ll do best, put me where I can do the most good and so the hat yells out Slytherin. Because if there was ever a group of children more in need of forgiveness and saving it was the generation of slytherin’s left after the war.

This story always comes back to Harry. Always comes back to the child that Lily died to save. 

Lily Evans went off to Hogwarts and she was beautiful and bright and lovely and just another person in a sea of people. Made special only by dying and a prophecy that would have been better off never being spoken. Her sister never spoke to her the same and her parents died knowing their daughter was fighting a war. She had friends in every house, because Lily was never one to let something as petty as house rivalries decide her friendships. She had screaming matches with James every year and she waged a cold, vicious war against most of the slytherin house. 

Lily’s story has always been one of sacrifice and love and never enough time. Lily was everything Harry could have been if he was given the chance. Bright and vibrant and ready to take on the world and scared only of herself.


End file.
